Former Marana mayor's ad sales led to garage door business venture

September 28, 2005 - Editor's note: This is the second part of a
two-part series examining a racketeering lawsuit filed against
Yellow Pages publisher Dex Media Inc. and how several sources close
to the case claim former Marana Mayor Bobby Sutton Jr. has engaged
in some of the same unethical behavior detailed in the lawsuit.

Inserted between the pages of Dex Media's last Tucson directory,
most Yellow Pages browsers will notice a thick, glossy, full-page
advertisement for A&A Garage, complete with its own pullout
tab.

Leafing through the pages, the odds are that anyone in need of a
garage door repair contractor will also notice the company's
prime-placed "triple truck" ads spanning three pages, starting on
Page 501 under the heading of "Garage Doors & Openers."

Needless to say, A&A Garage appears to have one of the best
ad campaigns in the book.

According to internal Dex Media records, these advertising
accounts were commissioned and sold by former Marana Mayor Bobby
Sutton Jr., who happens to own the business, and whom several Dex
employees claim knows all the tricks of the trade when it comes to
the Yellow Pages.

Sutton, a sales representative in Dex Media's Tucson sales
office, 6400 E. Grant Road, ventured into the garage door repair
industry this past year after selling these ads, and similar garage
door repair ads, to multi-state businessman Peter Stephens, whose
high-dollar advertisements have appeared in nearly every directory
from Tucson to Phoenix and from Salt Lake City to Denver.

Stephens owns the Arizona corporation A AAA All State Overhead
Garage Door Inc., which he operates under multiple aliases in
several states. Sutton purchased the Tucson and Salt Lake City
markets of Stephens' operation last year, setting up a call center
for A&A Garage inside a small Continental Ranch business office
in Marana where his employees work in shifts, dispatching waves of
incoming calls to offsite technicians.

Sutton, who said he always kept an eye out for potential
business ventures but "stayed away from most things" as a
politician to avoid potentially negative associations, admitted he
hadn't known much about the garage door repair industry until he
began handling Stephens' account. After seeing a potential to make
a profit, Sutton said he approached Stephens with the idea of
buying out a portion of his markets and operating under the alias
A&A Garage Door Service Co.

"When I got this big client, I ended up knowing him pretty well
and knew he was doing pretty well," Sutton said. "That just looked
like a great opportunity … so I just told him I wouldn't go into
any of his areas but I really wanted to do the business. It's not
like he had to give me his blessing or anything, but I didn't want
him to be surprised by it."

In the process, Sutton inherited the same advertising campaign
that he helped Stephens place in the Yellow Pages.

Several Dex employees, who were granted anonymity for this
story, claim records of the accounts Sutton handled for Stephens,
copies of which were obtained by the EXPLORER, show significant
evidence of violations of company policy and contain multiple
examples of trickery and account manipulation that inflated his
commissions and performance scores at the expense of other
employees. Meanwhile, Stephens regularly received large discounts
on his ads and, in some cases, had his billing stopped completely
while ads with active telephone numbers remained in the Yellow
Pages, according to several Dex sources.

"He completely manipulated the system and made a lot of money
off of it," said one source in Tucson. "He knew exactly how to work
the system to boost up his numbers. He was a pro at it, there's no
doubt. But the key here is that management was aware of it, very,
very aware."

In at least one case, several employees claim, Sutton blatantly
violated company policy to get a large garage door ad placed ahead
of other senior advertisers through a trick known as "heading
jumping," one of the major cardinal sins at the Yellow Pages. The
violation in question happened when a two-page color ad for A AAA
All State was placed in the last Phoenix Metro directory under the
heading of "Garage Builders & Kits." By doing this, the ad
subsequently jumped ahead of other paying customers' ads, which
fell alphabetically under the heading of "Garage Doors &
Openers."

In a May 2 internal e-mail message, Dex Media Staff Manager John
Fischer, who declined to comment when contacted by the EXPLORER,
alerted employees in the Phoenix and Mesa sales offices to avoid
company standards violations, specifically mentioning "heading
jumping" and noting that it had been a problem under the heading of
"Garage Builders & Kits."

Because Yellow Pages ads tend to generate more revenue for
advertisers when they're closer to the front of a heading, Dex
employees claim several advertisers were outraged and some may even
have been given billing adjustments resulting in a revenue loss for
the company.

"That's a major violation - heading jumping - and people have
been dismissed for that," said one source. "Those people under
Garage Doors, many of them to get the first position have been
paying big display advertising charges for a long time."

Sutton downplayed the allegations that he played any tricks that
may have disadvantaged regular paying customers, saying that
Stephens also took out a three-page ad under the heading of "Garage
Doors & Openers."

"The guy spends a lot of money, you know, so that was an
opportunity," he said. "Now, if you look through most of the books,
Precision Garage Door and other places are doing the same
thing."

Many of the tricks Sutton allegedly played with his accounts are
almost identical to those detailed in a racketeering lawsuit filed
last week against Dex Media and the union representing its sales
employees, IBEW Local 1269, which alleges a host of corruption is
occurring inside the company's Phoenix sales office ("Cooking the
books," Sept. 21).

Through elaborate and systematic violations of company policies
and collective bargaining agreements, certain sales representatives
in Phoenix, who are union agents, have routinely engaged in
unethical conduct to improperly enrich themselves under the
watchful eye of company officials and at the expense of other sales
employees, according to the lawsuit filed Sept. 19 in U.S. District
Court by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

After spending several months reviewing company records and
interviewing employees in Phoenix, Mesa and Tucson, the nonprofit
foundation filed the 25-page complaint on behalf of five Arizona
employees who claim they have been routinely victimized by the
alleged behavior. The plaintiffs claim undue compensation and
extraordinary income given to allegedly corrupt union workers came
at the expense of rank-and-file sales employees and violated
federal laws.

Sutton and the Tucson sales office are not mentioned in the
lawsuit, which focuses around allegations of compulsory unionism.
However, several sources close to the case claim company officials
in Tucson have permitted certain sales reps, including Sutton, who
is not a union official, to engage in some of the same acts alleged
in the complaint.

Sources with knowledge of Sutton's records consider him a
skilled pro at manipulating his advertising accounts to his own
benefit, even rivaling the same behavior allegedly happening in
Phoenix.

Sources familiar with the account manipulation say it's best
described as a "shell game" played with telephone numbers, in which
sales reps juggle accounts from phone number to phone number in an
effort to trick the accounting system into paying out a higher rate
of commission into their pockets. In the meantime, by disconnecting
phone numbers and reconnecting them at opportune times, sales reps
can take advantage of weaknesses in the system to give their
customers large discounts on premium ads, retroactive billing
adjustments and, in some cases, stop the billing completely,
several sources claim.

"Unless you engage in fraud and account manipulation, you don't
really know what it is you're seeing until you really get involved
in looking at it," said one source who has personally worked with
the accounts of several employees believed to be engaging in fraud.
"Bobby Sutton, from all the fraud that I've seen from a variety of
sources, his was the sloppiest. His made absolutely no attempt to
cover it up."

Dex records of the advertising accounts that Sutton handled for
Stephens, reviewed by the EXPLORER, contain massive lists of phone
numbers that were routinely disconnected, shuffled around, and
later shown reconnected, giving Stephens thousands of dollars in
billing adjustments. In the process, according to a review of these
records by several Dex sources, Sutton was able to receive
thousands of dollars in undue compensation while inflating his
scores on the company's Sales Performance Evaluation System.

"What Sutton does on his garage door account, since he's put ads
all over the state, he will time them, because we're commissioned
on an ad as soon as we sell it, not when it delivers and not when a
customer pays," said one source. "So, he submits these accounts
very strategically as one quarter of the SPE is rolling off. If
that was a high quarter, then he'll put new ads in and keep the
most current quarter real high as well. He knows how it's rolling
off and what's rolling off and what he needs to put on to keep the
numbers so high."

When contacted by the EXPLORER, several other Dex employees
indicated they were well aware of the alleged problems and, without
being prompted, named Sutton as one of several employees in the
Tucson office improperly enriching themselves through account
manipulation.

Sutton denied the allegations, saying "that's hard to do" and
people who think they can try it "don't usually end up staying
around that long." When asked to explain the seemingly messy garage
door accounts, Sutton simply said Stephens' billing had been
stopped because he was having some problems with his account.

"Pete's had a lot of problems. Anytime there's an error,
anything goes wrong with an ad, they'd stop (the billing) and Pete
bills in front of the country a couple hundred thousand dollars a
month. He was up to like 80 (thousand dollars a month) with us, but
anytime there's an omission, or something's done wrong, or it
prints wrong, or a book is left out, we're still a fallible
company," Sutton said. "I think just because he has so much
(advertising) all over the place, your percentages are things are
going to go wrong with those more than most, but I think he's
pretty current now."

According to a Dex Media price chart, the three-page ads Sutton
helped Stephens place in the last Phoenix Metro directory, alone,
regularly cost more than $18,000 per month, though Dex records show
he was given a 25-percent discount "per director approval." Dex
records indicate that Stephens' account, on this particular ad, was
retroactively adjusted from a current monthly billing of $13,329.75
to zero dollars after several phone numbers were shown disconnected
in 2004.

Employees say it's likely Sutton still received thousands of
dollars in commissions on the ad, even if Stephens' billing was
stopped and the company wasn't collecting revenue. It's through a
pattern of behavior like this that sources say they don't think Dex
Media's sale figures are being accurately reported.

Dex Media policies suggest that the company is aware that such
acts are capable of happening, stating that sales reps must "never
create or submit unauthorized/fraudulent or misleading customer
order activity or inappropriately manipulate customer records for
personal gain or compensation rewards."

Company policies also state that employees who suspect a
violation of law or company policy must report it to company
management. Several sources interviewed for this story said they
went that route, which did not remedy the situation but, instead,
resulted in subsequent harassment and disciplinary action taken
against them.

"The story goes on and on and on, because look what we're
dealing with here. Look what we're screwing up for some people.
Look what we're exposing," said one source.

"It might sound naive, but I had no clue what was going on in
the office, and the extent to which it was going on, and when I
started finding out about it, I went to management and told them
that I was becoming aware of certain situations that were not only
affecting my performance on the SPE, but other people," said
another source. "And basically what management told me was that I
better keep my mouth shut … They weren't concerned about the
cheating going on because they were all aware of it anyway, which I
eventually came to find out."

Sources claim detailed notations and remarks in Sutton's
accounts, initialed by cautious credit department employees,
suggest that those workers were protecting themselves when noting
that they were being overridden on the accounts, which were
regularly on credit watch or credit restriction, but were still
processed per management approval. The notation "This account is
not to be adjusted without talking to Rick Bozanich or Kevin McCaw"
also shows up regularly in the frequently adjusted accounts.
Attempts to reach both Dex credit officials were unsuccessful.

Depending on when he began operating, Sutton may or may not have
been handling his own account while he owned A&A Garage, though
Sutton told the EXPLORER he opened the business a year ago. It was
company policy that dictated Sutton give up the account when he
bought the company, but Dex records indicate Sutton was still
handling the account as recently as November for ads going in the
January directory.

"I've never had my own account. That's one thing they don't
allow," Sutton said, adding that he also had to give up Stephens'
account. "I don't have that account anymore, either, because now
that I'm in the industry, I'm not supposed to handle customers
within my own industry. So, I don't have any garage door companies
anymore."

According to Arizona Corporation Commission records, Sutton went
into business with his Continental Ranch neighbor Myron Hicks in
March 2004, forming the Arizona partnership SH Partners, which is
the parent corporation to A&A Garage. Hicks, who has worked as
vice president of investments for the Tucson branch of Prudential
Securities and was previously employed with Morgan Stanley, did not
return phone calls for this story.

In addition to SH Partners, Sutton and Hicks also formed SHF
Partners in June 2004 with Jill Fulton of Tinton Falls, New Jersey,
hoping to operate a garage door repair business on the East Coast.
Sutton said the idea quickly failed because he had a hard time
finding technicians.

According to Arizona Registrar of Contractors records, Sutton
did not obtain a contractors license for garage door repairing
until April 15, exactly one week before he was indicted by the
federal government. In the meantime, the A&A Garage ads that
appeared in the Yellow Pages in January featured Stephens' license
number. State records show that Sutton was denied a contractors
license in January and that Tucson resident Shannon Schwitters,
another money partner in A&A Garage, was the qualifying party
for the license.

Sutton established A&A Garage at the Continental Ranch
business park, 7620 N. Hartman Lane, but state records show that he
uses a mailing address at The UPS Store at the nearby Fry's
shopping center on Silverbell Road. A business manager at A&A
Garage said the business operated at another location before moving
into the current office in August 2004 but the company still has an
offsite storage facility.

According to Dex records, Sutton's advertising accounts for
A&A Garage were improperly packaged with Tortolita Self
Storage, a once-controversial commercial storage company in
Marana's Dove Mountain community that was developed by Northwest
Holdings Inc.

Arizona Corporation Commission records show that Sutton's
business partner Hicks is a principal shareholder in Northwest
Holdings, which, despite opposition from several Dove Mountain
residents, received unanimous approval from Sutton and Marana
council members in May 2001 to erect the storage units.

When contacted for this story, Sutton said Tortolita Self
Storage and A&A Garage had no affiliations and he couldn't
offer an explanation for the mix-up in the account.

"That was just a mistake in packaging or something like that -
one of the phone numbers or something," he said. "They had my stuff
connected to it and we got it solved right away, you know, just
kind of disassociated it back, but that was kind of an
anomaly."

'Unfair and deceptive' business practices

Several Dex sources claim the ads Sutton sold to Stephens,
including the ads he inherited when he took over A&A Garage,
are graphically designed to deceive customers into thinking they're
seeing ads for multiple companies, which would be a violation of
Dex policies.

According to company policies, ads that jeopardize consumer or
advertiser confidence in Dex Media are prohibited, including ads
that are misleading and feature content in which "the company's
name is not obvious."

The ads for both garage door companies use almost identical ad
copy and graphic elements, with the exception that different
business names have been graphically inserted on the sides of
trucks and different lists of phone numbers are buried within the
ads.

In the last Phoenix Metro book, for example, a three-page ad for
A AAA All State shows seven different telephone numbers buried
within the three pages, while the company's trucks on alternate
pages feature logos with alternate company names like "Affordable
Garage Door Services."

However, on each of the three pages, it's still the same ad for
the same garage door business. The only clear sign that the
seemingly different businesses are actually one in the same is a
small notation at the bottom of the first page, which reads: "See
the following two pages for additional information."

Someone in need of garage door repairs could easily conclude
that these are different businesses and might call several of the
numbers seeking different bids, sources claim. However, all of the
numbers appear to connect to phones that ring at the same call
center in Chicago, where operators answer "garage door service"
without saying the company name. Through this marketing scheme,
sources claim a consumer could easily think they have just checked
the prices of multiple companies and found them to be
competitive.

The ads in the last Tucson directory for A&A Garage are
almost identical, featuring alternate business names like
"Affordable Garage Door Services" and "Garage Door Service Co." The
ads, which feature the logos of several unaffiliated companies such
as Sears, claim the business is "Rated #1 in Customer Service" and
suggest it has received endorsements from Good Housekeeping.

In 2004, the state of Georgia's Office of Consumer Affairs
investigated and uncovered evidence of "unfair and deceptive"
advertising and business practices at Stephens' "AAA All State Door
Company," which the state found also operated under the names
America's Choice Overhead Door Co., America's Alliance Overhead
Door Corp., and Overhead Garage Door Services Inc.

The investigation was initiated based on a consumer complaint
involving a company originally identified as "America's Choice
Discount Garage Door Service." The consumer told investigators he
dialed a local telephone number after seeing a Yellow Pages ad for
garage door repairs and was quoted $147 as a total charge for
labor, parts and extended warranty. However, after a technician
completed the repair job, the customer received a bill totaling
$617.

-Misrepresented the identity of the business the consumer would
contact in response to the ad and confused the consumer as to the
business name by advertising in one name and billing in another
name.

-Misrepresented affiliations with merchant companies, including
Sears, and falsely claimed that the business had received a high
rating from at least two consumer-product rating groups, including
Good Housekeeping.

-Misrepresented that the business was incorporated in Georgia
and that the business advertised was a local business.

-Failed to disclose the non-local address for the forwarded
telephone numbers and willfully violated the terms of a 2001
Assurance of Voluntary Compliance.

The investigation revealed that Stephens' telephone lines were
programmed to forward all incoming calls to BellSouth switching
centers, where the lines were forwarded to undisclosed locations
out of state. The business was required to develop and implement
new employee training procedures in Georgia, as well as new
marketing guidelines. An Assurance of Voluntary Compliance was
entered incorporating the modified business practices and assessing
a $20,000 civil penalty with consumer restitution.

According to postings on a consumer watchdog Web site,
www.ripoffreport.com, customers in several states claim they were
ripped off by Stephens' garage door companies, which promised them
one rate and then charged another. In addition to poor customer
service, claims mentioned on the Web site suggest technicians
purposely broke parts when repairing garage door mechanisms.
Several attempts made by the EXPLORER to reach Stephens at his
businesses were unsuccessful.

According to the Better Business Bureau, Stephens' Phoenix
operation has received 16 consumer complaints since February 2003,
the majority of which were related to customer service or billing
issues. According to the bureau, the complaints were either
resolved or the company made a good faith effort to resolve them.
By comparison, Kaiser Garage Doors of Tucson has had three
complaints in the last three years.

According to the Better Business Bureau of Southern Arizona,
Sutton's A&A Garage has received one complaint since its file
opened three months ago but it has no outstanding complaints with
the Arizona Registrar of Contractors. The lone complaint dealt with
either a warranty or guarantee issue that was "assumed
resolved."

The Arizona Attorney General's Office has the authority to bring
actions alleging consumer fraud violations, which include
deception, false statements, false pretenses, false promises or
misrepresentations made by a seller or advertiser. But because the
state's complaint process is confidential, any complaints or
investigations against A&A Garage or A AAA All State are
unknown.

Several Dex employees claim the advertisements Sutton sold to
Stephens violated the company's group ad policies because Stephens
was supposedly dispatching incoming calls to unaffiliated garage
door repair businesses that, as a result, had no reason to
advertise with Dex.

"We've got recordings of like five or six different garage door
companies that have answered within the numbers that we've called,"
said one source. "One guy said, 'This is Acme Garage Door,' and I
said, 'Oh, well, what does your technician look like? I don't know
if you were Acme or not.' And he said, 'No, I think you're
describing Preferred Garage Door Co.' And I go, 'Are you
affiliated?' And he says, 'No, no. They just got the call. We
didn't get that call. They come in on rotation.'"

Despite rumors that A&A Garage might also be a boiler room
call center that dispatches calls to unaffiliated technicians,
Sutton said his new business venture is completely legitimate, with
its own employees, its own technicians and its own trucks. However,
while Sutton told the EXPLORER he has taken over Stephens'
operation in two markets, Tucson and Salt Lake City, an employee at
the Marana call center indicated A&A Garage also arranges and
dispatches calls to technicians in several other cities, including
Albuquerque.

Following in Stephens' footsteps, Sutton can only hope his
high-dollar advertising campaign pays off.

"You know, it's tough but that's the marketing scheme that
works. You go get as many people to call as you can, you provide
good service, and hopefully it turns around for you," he said. "And
to be honest, it's not going great yet, but we're a new business
and it's going pretty well."

Sutton's Dex accounts raise ethical questions

A host of Marana businesses, including some that had business
before the town while Bobby Sutton Jr. was mayor, were also his
advertising clients at Dex Media Inc., a review of internal company
records shows.

The records suggest that Sutton, a sales representative in the
company's Tucson sales office, 6400 E. Grant Road, was able to
receive commissions from picking up advertising accounts with
businesses opening in Marana and that he had at least one account
with a firm that had a substantial financial arrangement with the
town while he was mayor.

Among Sutton's client list is the Hochuli & Benavidez law
firm of Tucson, which he regularly sold ads to while he was mayor.
During his time in office, the firm was paid hundreds of thousands
of dollars annually to provide legal services to Marana while
Sutton received commissions from selling ads to the firm.

Attorney Dan Hochuli, who also is listed in state records as the
statutory agent for Sutton's personal business, A&A Garage, was
regularly contracted to serve as Marana's town attorney and was
paid well over $1 million while Sutton was mayor, according to town
records.

"It's just the course of business," Sutton said, adding that he
didn't think it crossed any ethical boundaries. "I deal with a
number of businesses in Marana, businesses that I've had to do
dealings with, and, you know, it's always up to the customer, too.
If they feel uncomfortable or anything they can always choose
another rep."

Sutton, a native of New Orleans, was elected to Marana's town
council in 1995 and served as vice mayor before becoming the town's
first directly elected mayor in 1999. He resigned from office
earlier this year, shortly after being indicted by the federal
government on charges of conspiracy and attempted extortion.

The charges followed a lengthy FBI investigation that began in
2002 and allege that Sutton and his close acquaintance, Marana
businessman Rick Westfall, conspired to extort large sums of money
and a contract for Westfall worth as much as $60,000 a month from
Waste Management Inc., the nation's largest trash hauling firm.

After three years of investigation, delays and rejected plea
bargains, a federal grand jury returned the indictment April 22,
alleging that Sutton threatened to use his political power to shut
down the firm's Ina Road operation in Marana unless Westfall was
given a lucrative contract, regardless of whether there was any
work available. Both men pleaded not guilty to all charges in
May.

During the FBI probe, federal investigators also questioned
several sources regarding the relationship between Sutton and
Westfall and how his trucking company kept getting contracts with
the town. A previous investigation by the EXPLORER showed that
between April 2000 and March 2002, Westfall's trucking business was
paid $103,522 for hauling materials at Marana's airport without
having to go through the bidding process mandated by state and town
regulations.

Sutton's indictment shocked many in the greater Tucson area,
including Marana residents who have grown to know the 35-year-old
community leader as their children's Little League baseball coach,
a committed husband and father of three.

However, several sources inside Dex Media have approached the
EXPLORER since April with a glaringly different perspective,
claiming the charges of conspiracy and attempted extortion leveled
against their co-worker are indicative of a larger pattern of
unethical behavior. Several sources inside the company claim
Sutton's business practices at Dex Media, where he is still
employed, have regularly breached company policies and crossed
ethical boundaries while company officials looked the other
way.

Sources interviewed for this story, including several current
and former Dex employees in both Tucson and Phoenix, were granted
anonymity based on reasonable fears that they could lose their jobs
or jeopardize their personal safety if their names are revealed.
Through anonymous sources, the EXPLORER obtained copies of Sutton's
account records, which several Dex sources consider evidence of
company-permitted fraud.

"Bobby did whatever he wanted and got away with it continuously.
We used to call Bobby the 'Teflon Don,'" said one source in Tucson,
referring to the nickname given to the late Mafia boss John Gotti,
who was notorious for evading the law. "Things just roll off of
him. He never gets caught. He never gets in trouble. He gets away
with everything and he has for years in the office."

Sutton said he acquired Hochuli's advertising account one year
after voluntarily assisting another Dex sales representative on it
without getting paid. The decision to move the account to him was
then authorized by company managers, Sutton said, adding that he
even made sure it was OK with Hochuli, whom he said "didn't seem
uncomfortable with it."

Hochuli did not return several phone calls seeking comment for
this story.

"If he had any pressure, he could have got out any time," Sutton
said. "But, I mean, he's an old advertising guy himself so he
understands. I just make recommendations and he buys what he wants
to buy … it's not like we turned the screws to him or
anything."

Dex Media policies state that the personal interests of
employees should never appear to conflict with the interests of the
company. "Employees should never seek to benefit directly or
indirectly from any business activity involving the company," the
policy reads, though it's unknown whether Sutton's practices ever
breached that code or Arizona laws, which prohibit public officials
from using their official position to gain anything of value they
wouldn't ordinarily accrue in the performance of their official
duties.

Sutton said he never felt any of his accounts raised any ethical
questions and the company was well aware he was receiving
commissions from selling advertisements to businesses in Marana and
Hochuli's firm.

"There's never any quid pro quo. And, I mean, you can speculate
from any situation that something was going on and I can't keep
people from doing that," he said. "I had to do my job. That's the
first thing is making a living, and providing for my family, and I
was doing that before I got on with Marana."

Getting the jump on new advertisers

Several Dex employees claim company officials in Tucson,
including Sales Director Laurie Wallner, often gave Sutton
preferential treatment and permitted certain behavior of him that
would not be tolerated of other employees, including the ability to
cherry pick businesses coming into Marana.

While he was mayor, Sutton was granted unfettered access to new
advertising accounts that were not assigned to the sales
department, several employees claim, and the advantage Sutton had
in knowing which businesses were going to open in Marana was a
benefit not available to them. Until he resigned as mayor, the
town's Web site listed Sutton as an advertising executive at Dex,
which several employees claim was an unfair advantage that marketed
him to businesses in Marana.

"What's really surprising about this whole situation is that the
company is aware of it and has supported it. Bobby Sutton and
Laurie Wallner, they're good buddies," said one source in Tucson.
"Bobby has gotten all the prime accounts. Laurie Wallner gave him
everything. They're not supposed to work that way. They're supposed
to be on a rotation. He got everything handed to him on a silver
platter."

Wallner is one of several company officials who declined to
comment when contacted for this story, instead referring all
comments to corporate officials in Denver, who told the EXPLORER
that allegations against Dex Media are unfounded.

Dex records show that Sutton, with management approval, was
allowed to pick up incoming Marana businesses on the owners' cell
phones before they established a business phone line. By doing so,
Sutton received commissions on new advertising orders that did not
go out on rotation to his co-workers, though they likely would have
once the actual business lines were established.

In the spring of 2003, for example, Dex records show that Sutton
picked up Bedroxx Bowl on a "finders keepers" basis by claiming the
account on the cell phone number of bowling alley co-owner Tony
Delheim before the business opened. A few months later, in July
2003, Sutton, in his capacity as mayor, helped Delheim stage a
ribbon cutting for the grand opening of the now-popular Marana
establishment.

Delheim is a relative of Dana Delheim, co-owner of the former
New West night club, which was shut down and turned into Bedroxx
Bowl after the state revoked its liquor license.

"I probably have 20 percent of my accounts that come in on cell
numbers and then you roll the main number into it. But that's just
a part of doing business - nothing no one else doesn't do," Sutton
said. "Any of those, you know, if there's ways to pick it up, I
actually picked up the main number as well. But knowing they were
coming in, I did work with them."

While Dex sales representatives ordinarily retain their same
customers year after year, company policy dictates that new
advertisers are assigned to sales reps based on a computerized
rotation list ensuring "integrity and fairness in the assignment of
new customers."

Sales reps are allowed to claim new accounts on a "finders
keepers" basis if they're potential advertisers that Dex normally
wouldn't notice to pick up. However, Bedroxx Bowl would have gone
out on rotation once it established a business line if Sutton
hadn't used his knowledge of its opening to nab the account,
several employees claim.

"The finders keepers rule only applies to residential customers
that weren't going to get a business phone and maybe like
contractors and landscapers, never for a business facility that
would have a business phone installed," said one source. "That
would have gone out on to rotation to the reps."

Peter Pusateri, business manager for Local 1269 of the
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the union
representing Dex sales employees, said it wouldn't be inappropriate
for a sales rep to pick up an account on a cell phone number, but
he was uncertain of the ethics behind a public official using his
inside knowledge of a business opening in his town to pick up an
account at the expense of his co-workers.

"If this guy, part of his thing as a city official is he's
steering to himself, as a salesperson, businesses before they
become business telephones, I don't know anything about that,"
Pusateri said. "I can't categorically say it's right or wrong … If
he did it, he didn't do it as an official in the union, he did it
as a rank and file member and who knows what they do.

"The union would never take a position that this kind of stuff
isn't possible," Pusateri added. "As a matter of fact, we have to
be due diligent in seeing to it that the contract is enforced, that
the assigning procedures are enforced … so anything is possible,
but to do it, to do it is tough. And to do it requires a lot of
intervention and a lot of people sticking their necks out for
people they may or may not even know."

Several sources say Sutton has gotten away with certain conduct
because of his close relationship with Wallner. One example of
Wallner's alleged favoritism toward Sutton, which some sources
cited, is a company-produced golf guide that Sutton was given the
green light to sell directory advertising for in recent years.

"That's all new money. That's going to help his performance
tremendously. I think we should all get a piece of that pie," said
one source, recounting her thoughts when she first heard the news.
"He made a lot of money off that and I have examples of where he
put significant dollars to boost his performance using the golf
guide."

Several employees said they ordinarily might not take the work
ethics of a co-worker so personal, but any preferential treatment
given to Sutton has directly and adversely affected them. That's
because the company's Sales Performance Evaluation System has been
set up so that sales reps are evaluated, rewarded and disciplined
based on how they rank against the top performers in the office,
which includes Sutton.

"The way the evaluation system is written, if you're
unsatisfactory in ratings for four consecutive quarters of the
year, you're dismissed. It's a 24-month roll period the evaluation
system works on, so if someone's been engaging in ongoing fraud
forever and ever, imagine what it does to those people who don't
engage in fraud?" said one source. "They're the ones who get
tagged."

Very shortly after he was indicted in April, Sutton's attorney
Michael Piccarreta filed a motion in federal court to have the
arraignment delayed so Sutton could make the trip to Canada to
receive Dex Media's prestigious President's Circle of Excellence
Award, which his co-workers say he regularly receives.

"These Circle trips are amazing. They really go all out. They
treat you like a king and a queen," said one source in Tucson who
has received the award. "They go to different places every year. A
couple years ago it was down in Mexico. They've gone to London.
They put you up in five-star hotels. You come back after all the
parties and you get a gift in your room every single night.

"You get to choose from all kinds of activities. I got to go
sailing, which I had never done before. God, it's thousands of
dollars. You get to bring your spouse. Then they have a big award
night where it's like black tie, everybody dresses up. I got a gold
diamond ring. They really do it up nice, there's no doubt about
it."

On the same day Sutton was indicted by the federal government,
Wallner left a companywide voicemail message telling Dex employees
they should all support Sutton and "treat him like the family
member that he is to all of us."

"One of our team members is facing a challenge today. Bobby
Sutton is dealing with that challenge with both courage and
dignity," states part of the 75-second message, which was recorded
and replayed to the EXPLORER. "I am proud of Bobby Sutton for the
work that he does here at Dex and the work that he does for his
community. He serves the town of Marana with pride, dignity and
integrity, and he will face this challenge with courage, I am
sure."

"That's a rather unusual stance for a corporation like Dex. I
can't imagine that she cleared it," said Jordan Ziprin, an attorney
who handled a large-scale federal probe that uncovered a host of
unethical behavior happening inside the Phoenix sales office 10
years ago, back when he was deputy regional attorney for the
National Labor Relations Board.

The company, U.S. West Direct, chose to settle the case out of
court for hundreds of thousands of dollars and agreed to several
remedial provisions, though several sources claim the same
unethical behavior is ongoing at Dex Media.

Ziprin, who has since retired from the NLRB, came out of
retirement in recent years to privately represent employees in both
Phoenix and Tucson who have disputes against Dex, including a
Tucson employee who was fired after supposedly not getting a fair
shake when compared to employees like Sutton.

In a previous interview, Ziprin said he had considered writing
the Arizona Attorney General's Office about possible conflicts of
interest regarding Sutton's accounts.

"What I heard about Sutton, even before this indictment, was
unbelievable. Selling advertising to customers who do business with
the town, that's a clear conflict of interest," he said, adding
that he also thinks there are other issues in Marana that need a
closer look from state regulators. "There's been a lot going on
over the years with no bidding of contracts and things. I don't
understand why the state's just let that go."

Sutton's peers on the Marana Town Council reacted quickly
following his indictment in April to adopt a resolution that allows
the town to pay his legal fees pending his acquittal. According to
the town's legal department, Sutton's bills would be paid dating
back to 2002 when he retained his attorney, Piccarreta, a past
state bar president and a lawyer for more than 30 years.

Piccarreta, who is admittedly one of the higher-priced criminal
defense attorneys in Arizona, is also one of Sutton's advertising
clients in the Yellow Pages, Dex records show. Sutton regularly
receives commissions on the premium ads he sells to the Piccarreta
& Davis law firm in Tucson.

"I've had Piccarreta for years. I had him for seven or eight
years, long before I even got to use him as an attorney," Sutton
said. "But I have a right to do that."

Provisions in Marana's Town Code, which town officials used to
justify their decision to pay Sutton's legal fees, suggest that
legal counsel should be "appointed by the town," though Sutton has
been allowed to personally retain Piccarreta because of the nature
of the case.

When contacted by the EXPLORER, Piccarreta was quick to point
out that the ads negotiated between his firm and Sutton fall under
the personal injury heading in the Yellow Pages, which he said he
isn't involved with. However, the ads do feature Piccarreta's name,
personal photo and a detailed list of his career accomplishments
while marketing him as a criminal defense attorney.

"Over the years, my only role with the Yellow Pages was to say I
don't want it, but I was always outvoted by the other divisional
office," he said. "Everyone knows my view on it is that I don't
want to be in Yellow Pages."

According to Dex records, also listed among Sutton's client list
is Tucson attorney Paul Gattone, who ironically is representing
Marana residents in their fight against the Marana Town Council's
decision to annex and rezone property along Cortaro Road for the
controversial Willow Ridge project.

Sutton has strongly supported the project and voted in its favor
last year to approve a rezoning that allows one house per 6,000
square feet, and some commercial development, on land previously
zoned for one house per 144,000 square feet. Residents have filed
lawsuits in state and federal court, claiming the development poses
a threat to the natural desert and that the town did not follow
proper procedures when annexing the property.

When residents brought a referendum on the rezoning last year,
developers throughout Marana pulled out the stops to raise almost
$70,000 to squash their action, including a large contribution from
Hochuli. Even after the rezoning received voter approval, Sutton
personally expressed disappointment at a council meeting that it
hadn't passed by a wider margin.

Gattone, the attorney representing the residents, said he
contacted Dex Media last year to have a listing placed under the
attorney subheading of "Civil Rights" in the January 2005 Tucson
directory.

"They said, 'Your account will be directed to Bobby Sutton,'" he
said, adding that he thought it was "kind of weird" but he placed
the order anyway. "He actually called me at the time and I said,
'Fine, that's what I want.'"

With litigation against the town pending, Gattone said he waited
for the Tucson directory to hit the shelves in January but, to his
dismay, his listing had not been placed. More ironically,
Westfall's attorney in the Waste Management matter, Stephen Weiss,
is the only attorney listed under the heading.

"Needless to say, I was kind of upset and maybe just a little
bit suspicious," Gattone said, adding that he wondered if outside
circumstances came into play. "But just a couple of months ago, he
called me again - because that's what his job is - and he just
clarified with me what the ad was going to be for this year and
that I'm getting the listing for free because they left them out
last time.

"So, when he called, he wasn't calling in connection with the
litigation, he was calling in connection with my Yellow Pages
listing," he added, pointing out the awkwardness of the situation.
"I won't say that it wasn't a little weird, but certainly there are
restrictions on talking to represented defendants when you're an
attorney."